Background

Notes and format last updated May 7, 2020

Starting on the May 7th update, the NY Times began including probable covid cases/deaths along with confirmed. This mostly affects death counts – for certain geographies that include probable COVID deaths in addition to confirmed, these are now added to the totals. For the time being, they were all added to the May 6th totals, causing a big spike at the U.S. level. Over time, NY Times will revise their historical counts and distribute these added deaths when they actually occurred, so the spike should fade.

Growth rates

Heat maps

  • The two heat maps below compare how quickly total cases or deaths have grown at various times in our respective geopgraphies.
  • The first plot compares growth rate for total cases; the second, growth rate for total deaths.
  • The metric used is doubling time, by which I mean how quickly total cases or deaths are doubling.
  • The plots track that doubling time at each date for our geographies. Darker colors reflect shorter doubling times, and thus periods of faster growth.
    • You can use the plots to track each geography over time and to compare the geographies to one another.
    • You can also compare the cases and death charts, to see how faster periods of death growth follow faster periods of case growth.

Case growth rates

  • This section charts the growth rate of both total and new cases for each of our respective geographies. Each geography has its own chart, and then that chart will have a trendline for total cases and new cases.
    • There are only plots for the U.S. and states because the numbers for the counties are too small to generate worthwhile trendlines in this section.
  • Note that we’re charting growth rate and not a count of cases, so don’t think of these as the standard “curve” that we hear about in the news and that we want to flatten. Instead, these growth rate charts help track more precisely what we can only estimate when we see those other curves. For these growth rate charts, if the line is above zero, the metric we are tracking (total or new cases) is continuing to grow. If the growth rate line is going up, it’s growing more quickly each day; if it’s going down but still above zero, it’s growing less quickly (but still growing). Only when the growth rate lines go below zero has the metric stopped growing.
  • Each of these two lines uses rolling windows to calculate a growth rate for that particular metric. I do the calculation differently for each to smooth out some of the large day-to-day discrepancies in new case reporting at the state level.
    • For total cases, the trendlines are a rolling 3-day average of daily growth rates in total cases. We want to see these decline (and almost all are), but they can’t go below zero. This is because we’re tracking growth rate and a growth rate line below zero would mean total cases have gone down, which can’t happen. They can only grow less quickly, which means we want to see the total case line get as close to zero as possible.
    • For new cases, the trendlines show a rolling 3-day average of daily growth rate in the rolling 7-day average of new cases. Including two rolling periods in this average helps smooth out crazy spikes at the state level that result from large day-to-day changes. Unlike the lines for total cases, we want to watch for the lines for new cases to get consistently below zero and stay there. That means that we are consistently seeing fewer new cases on a daily basis.

U.S.

Our states

Death growth rates

  • This section charts the growth rate of both total and new deaths for each of our respective geographies. Each geography has its own chart, and then that chart will have a trendline for total deaths and new deaths.
    • There are only plots for the U.S. and states because the numbers for the counties are too small to generate worthwhile trendlines in this section.
  • Note that we’re charting growth rate and not a count of deaths, so don’t think of these as the standard “curve” that we hear about in the news and that we want to flatten. Instead, these growth rate charts help track more precisely what we can only estimate when we see those other curves. For these growth rate charts, if the line is above zero, the metric we are tracking (total or new deaths) is continuing to grow. If the growth rate line is going up, it’s growing more quickly each day; if it’s going down but still above zero, it’s growing less quickly (but still growing). Only when the growth rate lines go below zero has the metric stopped growing.
  • Each of these two lines uses rolling windows to calculate a growth rate for that particular metric. I do the calculation differently for each to smooth out some of the large day-to-day discrepancies in new death reporting at the state level.
    • For total deaths, the trendlines are a rolling 3-day average of daily growth rates in total deaths. We want to see these decline (and almost all are), but they can’t go below zero. This is because we’re tracking growth rate and a growth rate line below zero would mean total deaths have gone down, which can’t happen. They can only grow less quickly, which means we want to see the total death line get as close to zero as possible.
    • For new deaths, the trendlines show a rolling 3-day average of daily growth rate in the rolling 7-day average of new deaths. Including two rolling periods in this average helps smooth out crazy spikes at the state level that result from large day-to-day changes. Unlike the lines for total deaths, we want to watch for the lines for new deaths to get consistently below zero and stay there. That means that we are consistently seeing fewer new deaths on a daily basis.

U.S.

Our states

By population rankings

This section tracks metrics for states and counties normalized for population (number of cases or deaths per million residents), and then compares these figures both for our geographies and the country overall.

States

  • This section shows tables ranking all 50 states for per populations rates of total cases, new cases, total deaths, and new deaths.
  • For each metric, in addition to the tables, the trends for the top states are plotted over time.
    • We only plot the top ten states for each metric so that the plots aren’t too crowded. But you can view the full 50-state rankings in the tables.

Total confirmed cases

Table of total confirmed cases per million residents (all 50 states)
Ranking State Cases Per Million
1 New York 19,179
2 New Jersey 17,883
3 Massachusetts 13,857
4 Rhode Island 13,814
5 District of Columbia 12,097
6 Connecticut 11,713
7 Delaware 9,484
8 Illinois 9,295
9 Maryland 8,540
10 Louisiana 8,369
11 Nebraska 7,058
12 Iowa 6,028
13 Pennsylvania 5,864
14 Michigan 5,666
15 South Dakota 5,500
16 Indiana 5,109
17 Virginia 4,983
18 Mississippi 4,969
19 Colorado 4,445
20 Minnesota 4,174
21 Georgia 4,133
22 New Mexico 3,573
23 Alabama 3,473
24 Kansas 3,372
25 North Dakota 3,310
26 New Hampshire 3,303
27 Tennessee 3,250
28 Wisconsin 3,054
29 Ohio 2,957
30 Washington 2,903
31 Utah 2,895
32 Nevada 2,719
33 California 2,709
34 North Carolina 2,549
35 Arizona 2,536
36 Florida 2,536
37 Arkansas 2,245
38 Kentucky 2,168
39 South Carolina 2,161
40 Texas 2,140
41 Missouri 2,109
42 Maine 1,655
43 Oklahoma 1,601
44 Idaho 1,569
45 Vermont 1,562
46 Wyoming 1,539
47 Puerto Rico 1,141
48 West Virginia 1,100
49 Oregon 979
50 Alaska 595
51 Montana 461
52 Hawaii 451

New confirmed cases

Table of new cases per million residents: rolling 3-day average (all 50 states)
Ranking State New Cases Per Million
1 Maryland 184
2 Nebraska 178
3 Rhode Island 133
4 Virginia 124
5 Mississippi 118
6 New Jersey 115
7 Illinois 113
8 Iowa 107
9 Wisconsin 106
10 District of Columbia 96
11 Alabama 93
12 Minnesota 92
13 Massachusetts 87
14 North Carolina 80
15 South Dakota 80
16 Arizona 77
17 Indiana 76
18 New York 76
19 Utah 68
20 Arkansas 65
21 New Hampshire 63
22 California 60
23 Colorado 60
24 Tennessee 60
25 Delaware 58
26 Georgia 57
27 New Mexico 57
28 Pennsylvania 57
29 Kansas 54
30 Michigan 51
31 Texas 51
32 Louisiana 46
33 South Carolina 46
34 North Dakota 44
35 Ohio 44
36 Connecticut 42
37 Kentucky 38
38 Washington 36
39 Florida 34
40 Nevada 34
41 Puerto Rico 33
42 Maine 29
43 Missouri 27
44 Wyoming 23
45 West Virginia 21
46 Idaho 19
47 Oklahoma 16
48 Oregon 12
49 Alaska 9
50 Montana 4
51 Vermont 4
52 Hawaii 1

Total deaths

Table of total deaths per million residents (all 50 states)
Ranking State Deaths Per Million
1 New York 1,518
2 New Jersey 1,298
3 Connecticut 1,084
4 Massachusetts 974
5 Rhode Island 654
6 District of Columbia 651
7 Louisiana 594
8 Michigan 541
9 Pennsylvania 427
10 Illinois 418
11 Maryland 407
12 Delaware 365
13 Indiana 313
14 Colorado 249
15 Mississippi 238
16 Georgia 183
17 Ohio 182
18 Minnesota 178
19 New Hampshire 175
20 Iowa 166
21 New Mexico 164
22 Virginia 159
23 Washington 147
24 Nevada 134
25 Alabama 124
26 Arizona 121
27 Missouri 120
28 Florida 112
29 California 104
30 Kentucky 97
31 Wisconsin 97
32 South Carolina 93
33 Nebraska 91
34 Vermont 88
35 North Carolina 84
36 Oklahoma 83
37 North Dakota 81
38 Kansas 71
39 South Dakota 66
40 Maine 63
41 Texas 56
42 Tennessee 52
43 Idaho 45
44 Arkansas 43
45 Puerto Rico 41
46 West Virginia 41
47 Oregon 35
48 Utah 33
49 Wyoming 25
50 Montana 15
51 Hawaii 12
52 Alaska 10

New deaths

Table of new deaths per million residents: rolling 3-day average (all 50 states)
Ranking State New Deaths Per Million
1 Rhode Island 18
2 New Jersey 12
3 Massachusetts 11
4 Connecticut 9
5 District of Columbia 9
6 Illinois 9
7 Delaware 7
8 Maryland 7
9 Pennsylvania 7
10 Mississippi 6
11 Indiana 5
12 Minnesota 5
13 New Hampshire 5
14 New York 5
15 Colorado 4
16 Iowa 4
17 Louisiana 4
18 Michigan 4
19 Virginia 4
20 Arizona 3
21 New Mexico 3
22 North Carolina 3
23 North Dakota 3
24 Ohio 3
25 South Dakota 3
26 Alabama 2
27 California 2
28 Florida 2
29 Georgia 2
30 Kentucky 2
31 Missouri 2
32 Nebraska 2
33 Nevada 2
34 South Carolina 2
35 Wisconsin 2
36 Arkansas 1
37 Maine 1
38 Texas 1
39 Washington 1
40 Wyoming 1
41 Alaska 0
42 Hawaii 0
43 Idaho 0
44 Kansas 0
45 Montana 0
46 Oklahoma 0
47 Oregon 0
48 Puerto Rico 0
49 Tennessee 0
50 Utah 0
51 Vermont 0
52 West Virginia 0

Counties

  • This section focuses on the county level. It shows tables with our counties ranked by percentile of U.S. counties for per population rates of total cases and total deaths.
    • Each table also shows the top five counties in the country in addition to our counties, for added perspecive.
  • In addition to the tables, our counties’ percentile for both total cases and total deaths are plotted over time.

Confirmed cases

Table showing total cases per million and percentile for all US counties. Includes our counties and the top 5 in the US for perspective.
County State Cases Per Million Raw Ranking Percentile
Trousdale Tennessee 123,449 1 99
Dakota Nebraska 82,593 2 99
Lincoln Arkansas 74,862 3 99
Nobles Minnesota 69,490 4 99
Lake Tennessee 58,865 5 99
Davidson Tennessee 7,506 265 91
Richland South Carolina 3,514 695 77
Pierce Washington 2,125 1045 66
Orange California 1,904 1150 63
York South Carolina 1,370 1441 54

Our county percentiles over time

Deaths

Table showing total deaths per million and percentile for all US counties. Includes our counties and the top 5 in the US for perspective.
County State Deaths Per Million Raw Ranking Percentile
Terrell Georgia 3,048 1 99
Early Georgia 3,042 2 99
Randolph Georgia 2,803 3 99
Hancock Georgia 2,601 4 99
Essex New Jersey 2,061 5 99
Richland South Carolina 159 593 81
Pierce Washington 86 856 72
Davidson Tennessee 85 865 72
Orange California 46 1205 61
York South Carolina 25 1456 53

Our county percentiles over time

Raw counts

Total confirmed cases

U.S.

Our states

Our counties

New confirmed cases

U.S.

Our states

Our counties

Total deaths

U.S.

Our states

Our counties

New deaths

U.S.

Our states

Our counties

Stay-at-home comparisons